Kitchen countertop appliances incorporate electric motors operable to slice, dice, crush, mix, blend or otherwise process food and drink products. The motors, generally operating at speeds of thousands to tens of thousands of rotations per minute, must be cooled to operate efficiently. Typically, electric appliance motors are cooled by a fan integral to the motor wherein the fan blows air on or draws air over the motor during operation. Unfortunately, many existing appliance cooling systems are inefficient. This commonly occurs because the appliance, including blenders, moves an insufficient volume of cooling air due to vents of inadequate surface area. Typical air intakes are often located in close proximity to an exhaust outlet resulting in recirculation of hot air. These inefficiencies may result in reduced cooling.
In addition to cooling the motor, the inefficient air flow and fan operation creates noise. An inefficient air flow particularly can create a substantial noise level. If an engineer tries to compensate for the poor cooling of a motor with a more powerful fan, then the result is to create even more noise.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge to increasing appliance motor cooling efficiency is the placement of the air intake and exhaust outlet. Typical air intakes for blenders are designed as grates or sieves in the blender base housing. The air flow generated by the motor's fan causes air to enter the intake where it is then routed over the motor as desired. However, the typical grate/sieve construction found in modern blenders has several potential shortcomings. Namely, fluid or food on the countertop or fluid or food spilled from the blender can enter the open and exposed intake due to operator negligence. In some cases, particularly where a chilled or iced food or drink product is being processed, condensation on the exterior of the blender may enter the intake. Blender manufacturers and owners have sought to prevent this type of contamination. This is particularly true as more blenders incorporate complicated electronic controls and components.
Cooling air pulled through the motor housing exchanges heat with the motor before being expelled from the appliance as exhaust air. A blender's exhaust air flow is most commonly directed to the rear or to the bottom of the blender. The proximity or location of the air intake to the exhaust outlet often causes warm exhaust air to be recirculated into the motor chamber thereby greatly reducing the appliance's cooling efficiency. Baffles are commonly used to reduce the intake of warm exhaust air (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,358) by acting as a physical barrier between the air intake and exhaust outlet.
Typical blenders are also not constructed with in-counter installations in mind (i.e., a portion of the blender extends into or through the plane defined by a countertop), and they are certainly not designed with both countertop and in-counter installations in mind. Therefore, current blender air intake and outlet assemblies are not conducive to, or would preclude, in-counter appliance installations. Yet, in-counter installations provide potential benefits that include improved aesthetics, reduced countertop space (increased clearance to above-counter cabinets), and sub-cabinet exhaust flow. Ideally, an improved air intake assembly would be designed to operate with both countertop and in-counter blender installations.
When a conventional blender is installed in-counter, the typical ‘grate’-style air intake is moved to a point immediately proximate to the countertop's upper surface, which only increases the possibility of contamination. Specifically, standing fluid or loose food items might be pulled into the blender's motor housing. An in-counter installation may also mean that a typical air intake is located beneath the upper surface of the countertop. A sub-countertop air intake is thought to be detrimental as the space under a countertop can contain warm, recirculated, and/or stagnant air that could impede motor cooling.
In light of the above and other shortcomings with current blender motor cooling regimes, there is a need for a new intake assembly that is operable with both countertop and in-counter installations that provides efficient cooling and relatively quiet airflow over a blender motor. Ideally, an improved intake would preclude or reduce the possibility of interior contamination relative to existing air intake assemblies. A blender air intake snorkel in accordance with the following description is thought to solve one or more of these or other needs.